Birding Pictures

Bird

In my last post, I shared pictures of Those Beautiful Blue-headed Vireos which we have breeding on our hill. Here’s a vireo that we don’t get to see too often in Central PA, although I’ve heard them twice in migration this year. While visiting Cape May for a few days last week, I was excited to […]

Hummingbird nectar and nectar from flowers don’t make up all of a hummingbird’s diet. A large percentage is comprised of insects and spiders, giving the tiny birds needed protein for their incredibly fast metabolism. Their tiny wings beat about 53 times a second according to allaboutbirds.org by Cornell and their hearts beat up to 1250 […]

When our family went to Jamaica last week for our son’s wedding, I left my Canon camera and big lens behind so I wouldn’t be tempted to bird instead of spend quality time with family. We were only there for 3 days, after all. But when having breakfast in an open-air restaurant every morning, […]

As I prepare these blogs, I learn new things all the time. For example, because this Belted Kingfisher has one dark band across his breast, and some rufous along the side that doesn’t extend all the way across, it is a juvenile. Which explains its comical attempts to land on the power line overlooking the […]

After trying all summer to get close enough to one of these beauties in good light, I finally struck gold, I mean blue! According to allaboutbirds.org , The all-blue male Indigo Bunting sings with cheerful gusto and looks like a scrap of sky with wings. Sometimes nicknamed “blue canaries,” these brilliantly colored yet common and […]

Maybe it’s because red is my favorite color, or maybe it’s because there are fewer warblers around to enjoy close-up; but anyway, scarlet tanagers really knock my eyes out when they show up in the dense forest. It’s hard to catch them in the sunlight, but when you do, they really light up the […]

This morning I had the fun of taking some old friends birding on my hill. They are newbies to birding, but very excited to learn. The road up my hill and back down goes through various habitats with fields, deep woods and ravines, and brushy areas. Different habitats means different birds. The day started out […]

Baltimore Orioles have been busy in the neighborhood! They’ve stopped coming to the deck for oranges and have dispersed to other places busily weaving their nests and tending their babies. They like to use long plant fibers, some of which they strip from the old dead plants such as milk weed and other weeds. Their […]